Page 27

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Clara lobbied to check if Rose Gleiner might still be inside Kentucky Manor, even though it was significantly after her shift would have ended. Far more likely she’d left before we arrived.

Besides, the dogs and I voted no.

Clara listened to the dogs, who could be heard even from this distance casting their votes from inside the van. My vote, she ruled invalid because I didn’t have twelve kinds of identification to display while standing on my head and handing it to her in specific order with my feet.

At the dog park, we spotted three vehicles in the parking lot. A second low turnout with the schools closed and more people than usual off work, even considering the day was raw and spasmodically spitting pellets of slushy rain.

Maybe people enjoying time off opted for a cozy, inside by the fireplace interlude on a day like this over a foray to the dog park.

Or maybe this wasn’t rare. Because my experience of the dog park was at civilized hours. So maybe this was usual for — yes, I’m going to gripe about it again — this early.

All the occupants from the three vehicles were in the big-dog enclosure, with Donna in the center of a small human group sitting atop one of the picnic tables.

Bernie the Bernedoodle puppy was tumbling after a pair of rescued greyhounds, who would have left him in the dust if any existed in these conditions.

As soon as Bernie spotted Gracie, LuLu, and Murphy streaking across the open after being released, he yipped in excitement and altered course to intersect them. Actually, to intersect their wake, because they were way too fast for him.

Hattie raised her head, but stayed by Donna’s side as she intersected Clara and me with unerring precision and jerked her head toward another table.

Once we were ensconced there, Clara said, “Donna, when was the barn built out near that spot where Jaylynn was killed?”

Her eyes narrowed.

“Hattie was a puppy and I was taking her to training not far from there, but I still had Rosie. Now, was it before or after Rosie had the biopsy that looked so bad, but came back as noncancerous...?”

We waited.

She blinked. “Eleven and a half years ago.”

Neither of us doubted it. Donna telling time by dog history was foolproof.

“You were wondering if it was there, with its lights, when she was shot?” Donna piecing together our motivations was spot on, too. “No, it wasn’t. Closest building of any kind was well to the east and didn’t have a view of the spot. That’s the folks who reported a possible shot. If that’s all—”

Afraid she’d leave us for the other picnic table group, I quickly asked, “What do you think of Emil Dorrio? And how close was he to Derrick? Back then and more recently?”

“You don’t want to know much,” she said dryly.

“Also all the family dynamics.”

She snorted.

“The family’s interesting. You might have heard studies about how family wealth reaches a third generation only about thirty percent of the time and beyond that only about 10 percent. What they don’t talk about is how families don’t hold onto power and influence any better.”

Clara tipped her head. “What about aristocratic families, say in Europe?”

“I suppose titles can help them hold on, at least to some trappings. But it makes sense, if societies are upwardly mobile, they’re also downwardly mobile and some people are going to slide down.

“Judge McKay Dorrio was the upwardly mobile one — that was Yale’s great-grandfather.

My grandfather knew him and thought highly of him.

The next generation produced another judge and a doctor, but also a couple other sons who didn’t do as well.

When the second judge’s offspring started following the same pattern, he was pretty darned ruthless in pinching off the branches he didn’t consider worthy and Yale’s daddy tried the same.

But he wasn’t as ruthless as the second judge or maybe the branches were more resilient.

Anyway, some of those less respectable branches didn’t get pruned off entirely. Stuck around. Like Emil’s daddy.”

I’d need a chart to follow this in detail, but I got the gist. Derrick came from the well-regarded side of the family. Emil did not.

“Thing was, most of the male Dorrios had a propensity for falling for women of, let’s say, not the first order, going right back to Judge McKay Dorrio. He married one of Fern’s great-great-aunts or cousins or such—”

Fern’s family business at that time centered around what used to be called a house of ill repute. This woman who married McKay Dorrio could have been the white sheep of her family... or not.

“—and she didn’t have social connections, but she had the brains and the will to raise that next judge and the doctor to uphold the Dorrio name in most ways.

But when it came to marrying, those two and her other sons.

..” Donna shook her head. “They all went for sex over sense. A trait passed down to most of the Dorrios.”

“But Beverly,” Clara protested.

That could be taken two ways — as standing up for the idea of Beverly having sense or disbelieving she’d ever been sexy.

Donna responded to the latter.

“Wouldn’t know it to look at her now, but she was a dead ringer for Ann-Margaret.

Not as brainy from what I’ve heard about Ann-Margaret, but determination?

Oh, yeah. Beverly wasn’t letting the privileges of marrying a Dorrio get away from her.

She got in good with her father-in-law and Yale’s grandfather, too, and that cemented Yale’s position.

Emil’s father was a different story. Definitely a branch the family would happily have pruned off.

But Emil’s parents worked that to their advantage, basically supported themselves by threatening to drag the name through the mud and having the others pay up.

“Now, Emil’s a different case. He got some more brains and a lot more ambition than most in his line.

Instead of trying to milk his relatives directly, he cozied up to the respectable members of the family and got a fair amount of help from them.

Benefited both sides, with him bundling his parents off to Florida years ago, while he kept the name out of trouble. ”

Something in the way she said that...

“By behaving honorably?” I asked.

She snorted again and Hattie turned her head. “I sincerely doubt it. But nothing he’s been caught at.”

“He and Derrick were friendly when they were younger—”

Donna waggled her hand in a so-so gesture.

I restarted with, “But Emil testified Derrick talked about wanting to work on his marriage and he was Derrick’s alibi witness—”

“Which didn’t cover the entire window,” Donna said.

“True.” I looked at her. “Deliberately?”

Donna looked away, making eye contact with Hattie. “How could any of us know that?”

“He visited Derrick in prison over the years.” I wasn’t so much extolling his virtue as wondering what was in it for him.

Hey, if Clara didn’t like him, neither did I.

“That’s a fact. And in a twist, Emil’s name has suffered by connection with the other branch of the family, particularly Derrick. Yes, I know, Clara, that you don’t think he could possibly suffer enough, but it is notable.”

“He’s a horrible man,” Clara said.

“Never said he wasn’t,” Donna agreed cheerfully.

“But does this have anything to do with Derrick’s murder?” I asked. “Or are you saying Derrick’s relationship with Jaylynn followed that family pattern? Or...” I ended with a shrug.

“No, wouldn’t say Jaylynn followed that pattern. She was young and pretty and maybe a little silly, but she had a good heart, unlike some of the others.”

That matched the image of her Ruby from the post office gave us.

“And Derrick loved her, wanted their marriage to work.”

Clara’s words accorded with her previous view, but the tone indicated wavering. Possibly because Emil was the source of the account that Derrick still loved Jaylynn.

Donna looked at her sideways. “He was smitten with her, to start and went against his parents’ wishes. But her getting pregnant, then marriage, then the baby... Too much reality. Too much responsibility for him too soon.”

“So he started an affair with Dova,” Clara said.

Donna turned to watch the path of one of the greyhounds trotting with purpose toward the far fence line.

Clara and I looked at each other.

Yes, we both read Donna’s body language as saying there was something — probably a whole lot of something — we were missing.

“He did have an affair with Dova,” I insisted. “Everybody knew it, especially after they got married so quickly after the murder.”

“Which was part of the prejudice against him,” Clara slid in.

Donna said, “Oh, yeah, he had an affair with Dova. Eventually. If it comes to that, she might have been the making of him. Beverly said that to me once. Course, then she added, If he hadn’t been accused in Jaylynn’s death. ”

Accused, not convicted.

Death, not murder.

Mama Beverly held a tight grip on denial.

“Dova had — has — enough determination and discipline for both of them,” she finished.

My brain rewound her words. “Wait, wait, wait. Go back to that eventually. He wasn’t having an affair with Dova from when Jaylynn was pregnant?”

“I wasn’t sitting on their shoulders. How could I know?”

“Because you always do,” Clara said simply.

Donna’s protest died, accepting the truth of that. “Well, I do believe he didn’t start carrying on with Dova until after Robbie was born.”

“He was faithful while Jaylynn was pregnant?”

“No.”

Two affairs? With Dova the second one?

“Who was he carrying on with before?” I asked.

Without moving her head, Donna shifted her eyes to us for a moment, then back to the trotting dog.

“Oh, my God,” Clara whispered.

“What?” I demanded.

“Really?” Clara asked Donna.

“ What? ”

“It wasn’t widely known—” Donna started.

“I’ll say,” Clara agreed fervently.

“ What? ”

“—but they were seen together.”

I switched my question. “Who?”

“How could he?” Clara said more to herself than Donna. “How could she? ”

“Who?”

Clara said, “Her sister.”

“Her sister? Jaylynn’s sister? Payloma ?” I gawked at Clara. “No.” Pivoted the gawk to Donna. “No.” Then back to Clara.

“Olive Carnell knows,” Clara mused, not heeding my struggle to absorb this. “She definitely knows. The way she said Payloma was always jealous of Jaylynn.”

Donna nodded once.

They were right, I realized.

Though there was something niggling at the back of my head, as my shock fog started to clear.

“But Jaylynn didn’t know?” Clara asked Donna.

“I’m as sure as I can be that she didn’t.”

“But... but...” Yes, I sounded like a child’s imitation of a motorboat. “The authorities...?”

“I doubt they had any idea.” Donna’s voice excluded any doubt. “It certainly wasn’t talked about during the investigation, nor did it come out in the trial.”

Derrick fooling around with his sister-in-law while his wife was pregnant added a depth to his scumbag qualifications that prosecutors would salivate to get in front of a jury.

As for the defense, it would have made good use of the sister-in-law as another suspect. Though an argument could be made that she’d have been a better suspect if Derrick had been killed back then, since she’d apparently been traded in for Dova.

The niggle at the back of my head came forward.

Olive saying of Payloma and Dova, Oh, they were fast friends. For a while.

“Dova replaced Payloma?” I barely waited for Donna’s blink to acknowledge that. “When?”

“Right after Robbie was born.”

“Wow,” Clara breathed out. “No wonder Payloma doesn’t like Dova. Though, really, does she have any room to criticize anybody else?”

No.

“Your pack has done its job.” Donna looked across the field where Bernie the Bernedoodle puppy flopped on the ground, panting. “I’ll gather my pups and be on my way. Unless, of course, you have more questions.”

Except she didn’t wait for an answer, climbing down from the table.

I couldn’t speak for Clara, but I was wracking my brain for more questions.

“Oh.” Donna interrupted my wracking. “Rose Gleiner will talk to you at four o’clock at Kennedy Manor. She’s working extra hours today and that’s when her break is.”

“Great.” Clara rewarded her with a grin.

I nodded my agreement. “We’ll be there.”

Donna dismissed that with a wave. She hooked a leash to Bernie’s collar and he followed Hattie happily.

As the trio walked past us, a question came to me.

“Donna? What’s the deal with all Beverly’s cabbage roses?”

She gurgled deep in her throat, like a chuckle that couldn’t get past a snort.

“Not her cabbage roses. They were her mother-in-law’s idea. When she and Yale inherited the house, he wouldn’t let Beverly change a thing.”

No wonder the woman was grumpy.